Paramilitary Police State & Private Prisons

Greece Will Be a War Zone, Sect of Revolutionaries Warns Tourists

Security forces fear wave of terror as austerity programme provokes strikes, protests, violence – and assassination

August 1, 2010

Guardian - Greek security forces have warned of a wave of violence reminiscent of the terror that stalked Italy in the seventies after urban guerillas threatened last week to turn the country into a "war zone."

"Greece has entered a new phase of political violence by anarchist-oriented organisations that are more murderous, dangerous, capable and nihilistic than ever before," said Athanasios Drougos, a defence and counter-terrorism analyst in Athens.

"For the first time we are seeing a nexus of terrorist and criminal activity," he said. "These groups don't care about collateral damage, innocent bystanders being killed in the process. They are very extreme."

The threats came from a guerrilla group called the Sect of Revolutionaries, as it claimed credit for the murder of Sokratis Giolas, an investigative journalist. Giolas was shot dead outside his Athenian home on 19 July, in front of his pregant wife.

The gang promised to step up attacks on police, businessmen, prison guards and "corrupt" media – and, for the first time, threatened holidaymakers.

"Tourists should learn that Greece is no longer a safe haven of capitalism," its declaration said.

"We intend to turn it into a war zone of revolutionary activity with arson, sabotage, violent demonstrations, bombings and assassinations, and not a country that is a destination for holidays and pleasure."

In an accompanying picture, the group displayed an arsenal that included AK 47 assault rifles, semi-automatic pistols and brass knuckledusters.

"Our guns are full and they are ready to speak," it said. "We are at war with your democracy."

The terror threat comes as Greek authorities endure a summer of strikes and escalating upheaval. Military trucks and petrol company vehicles were employed yesterday to alleviate a fuel shortage as more 30,000 lorry and tanker truck operators ignored a government order to return to work on pain of prosecution. Shortages were reported on many holiday islands and destinations in northern Greece where thousands of tourists are stranded.

The far more serious scourge of domestic terrorism was thought to have been eradicated in 2004, with the disbandment of the 17 November group.

Born out of the turmoil that followed the collapse of US-backed military rule, 17 November murdered the CIA station chief, Richard Welch, in 1975.

For the following 27 years it targeted Turkish envoys, juntists, US military personnel, industrialists and western diplomats, including a British military attaché in Athens, Brigadier Stephen Saunders, who was murdered in 2000.

Unlike 17 November, Greece's new generation of urban guerrillas has not tried to garner popular support.

The Sect of Revolutionaries emerged from the rioting after a teenager, Alexis Grigoropoulos, was shot dead by a policeman in December 2008. The men and women thought to comprise its closely guarded ranks are in their late twenties and thirties and appear to espouse violence almost for the sake of it.

"We don't do politics, we do guerilla warfare," its members announced in the proclamation placed on the boy's grave within hours of their first attack, on a police station, in February 2009. Two weeks later they sprayed the offices of a private television station with bullets. Three months after that, they claimed their first victim, Nectarios Savvas, a police officer protecting a state witness. Six people have died in separate attacks this year.

Last month another group, yet to be named, sent a parcel bomb wrapped up as a gift to the office of Michalis Chrysohoidis, the minister in charge of public security. It killed his chief aide.

The surge in violence comes amid rising social tensions over the austerity measures enforced by the government in exchange for €110bn in emergency aid, the biggest bailout in history.

Mounting social unrest, waning support for political parties, and record levels of unemployment among an increasingly radicalised youth are believed to have augmented the ranks of anti-establishment groups.

"The economic crisis has most definitely played a role in aggravating the violence," Chrysohoidis told the Observer. "And the violence we are seeing is worst than ever before because society as a whole is more violent than ever before."

To date Chrysohoidis, who oversaw the break-up of 17 November during a previous stint in the same post, has ordered police to tread a fine line.

But anger is growing. Security officials say it is only a matter of time before one of the three groups currently active in Greece strikes again.

More worrying, they say, are their connections to the Balkan criminal underworld that has made access to weapons dangerously easy.

"In other European countries, home-grown terrorism has been on the decrease for years," said Drougos. "But in Greece the situation is not unlike pre-Bolshevik revolutionary Russia or Italy at the start of the terror campaign by the Red Brigades… it's very unpredictable and tourists should be vigilant."

The Ultimate Betrayal: Police and Military Working Together to Oppress Americans

August 2, 2010

Activist Post - The concepts of military service and public police service are worlds apart, for good reason. Today in America, we are currently witnessing the culmination of a decades-long trend that has introduced the language, weapons and tactics of the overseas battlefield onto the streets of America.

The planned coordination between military forces abroad and public forces at home further threatens to subvert the very social fabric upon which America was built, resulting in a betrayal of The U.S. Constitution and the American people.

The Military Machine

The military is designed to be a last-resort option when all diplomacy has failed. Military personnel and munitions should be deployed with a heavy heart, because it is understood that the military task is one of enemy annihilation. The weapons used by the military are developed to "shock and awe" on every level. Pyschological warfare and espionage is often employed first to soften up the enemy before unleashing an array of high-tech weapons that range from pain compliance on the street level, to bombs rained from above.

The typical military serviceman is a brave soul who has trained physically and mentally to perform under the constant stress of battlefield conditions. However, this stress-training, much like any of the martial arts, can result in a non-questioning live weapon who must kill or be killed when placed in a threatening situation. Additionally, their prison guard-like duties promote attending to their stated enemies as hostile, criminal and subversive. The population of the enemy country are called civilians, as they are not afforded any legal protection that might be owed to citizens, and any deaths can be written off as "collateral damage." Thus, military training inculcates values of aggression, intimidation, and the use of excessive force if it means self-preservation in a world where might is right, so long as it means Mission Accomplished.

Domestic Peacekeeping and The Constitution

Police, on the other hand, are in service to the domestic population and the U.S. Constitution. They swear an oath to the local community, and are paid by citizens to be experts in well-considered evaluation and the peaceful resolution of conflict. Their duties comprise those of humility: patrolling a neighborhood to ensure restfulness; rescuing a cat caught in a tree; removing a threat when there is a plea for help.

The Constitution specifies their unique role in tending to issues within the nation's borders in the 9th and 10th Amendments, by prohibiting Federal intervention in domestic law enforcement duties. However, through legislation and national emergency directives, the protection against a Federal usurpation of power has been all but erased. In fact, the Federal government has never had more power than it does today to bring the military into the daily lives of its citizens.

Where are we today?

I have spoken to retired police officers who remember a world where it was considered a failure to draw a weapon unless under direct attack. Even if such an action was required, the result was nightmare inducing. Today's police seem to have lost such empathy. Police are rarely a welcome site these days, as they are often black-clad, brandishing military gear and weapons, and applying military force over such non-violent infractions as traffic stops. Police are being equipped and trained as if they are an occupying force, and the results have been predictably disastrous.

Additionally, local police are being issued directives encouraging them to see select members of their communities as potential domestic terrorists. This threat assessment language is the exact spur needed to create a feeling of impending attack. This has led to inland checkpoints, where police, military, and the American people are being desensitized to this absolute perversion of American values and laws.

The traveling tyranny of the G8/G20 shows us where this road can lead. When the creator of an organization called The Love Police is detained and tortured, journalists threatened with rape, sound cannons deployed, and women are attacked by police dogs . . . anything is possible. Military and police alike are indoctrinated to adopt a stress-inducing frame of mind that leads away from peaceful resolution and toward this type non-thinking assault.

The U.S Congress has been instrumental in allowing this change of mindset to happen. They have long allowed the Drug War to be the excuse for minimal oversight of the actions of SWAT and the DEA, permitting daily paramilitary-style assault raids that terrorize our citizens. The cases of home invasion (sometimes mistaken identity) have resulted in unconscionable atrocities. The War on Terror makes things exponentially worse, as the "war without end" can come home to roost.

The ultimate betrayal has occurred on American soil, just as it has in many other countries throughout history. When the military and police begin to abandon their codes of honor, mass enslavement is the inevitable result. We need to take action now and ask our police and military to remember the oaths they swore not to obey any orders that will lead to our oppression. The real enemies are those who give those orders.